1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an editing apparatus, a method, and a program for displaying text or image data stored in a storage device on a display unit.
2. Description of the Related Art
Up to now, various types of application software have been released, which are executed on a personal computer to produce page design files of a poster, a catalogue, presentation data, a postcard, a leaflet, or an advertisement. A well-known desktop publishing (DTP) function is installed in the software for producing page design files. That is, the software is equipped with a printing function for printing out data with a printer as well as a function for editing a layout of design elements on a page, such as an image, characters, or clip art, a shadow-casting function for shadowing an image or characters, and a function for applying a decorative effect to an image or characters.
Page design applications can be classified into two types: an expensive and advanced application designed for a professional graphic designer and a relatively inexpensive and general-purpose application featured by simple operation and processing. The former places emphasis on the range or diversity of functions rather than an operability so as to more precisely reflect an idea of a graphic designer in many cases. Thus, a general user is unwilling to use this application because of a lot of bother in mastering it. On the other hand, the latter is intended for a user who can operate office applications, such as an operating system (OS), a word processor, and a spreadsheet, to some degrees. Therefore, an operation up to a process of printing the page design is simplified, and a product that not only performs an editing operation but also guides a generation flow up to print settings appears on the market.
Most of the applications for general users include materials for efficiently producing a page design, such as predesigned design template (template), clip art, or photos for the purpose of achieving a high-quality page design with a simple operation. A user completes a page design following a procedure of selecting a design template that matches renderings of an intended page design and editing a page, such as replacing a photo, editing text, adding another material, or applying a decorative effect as appropriate. A general user, who does not have adequate knowledge about a layout design/color design, needs to consume a lot of time to develop an intended page design from the start, and the completed one is not necessarily desirable in terms of design. The desirable page design here means a condition that readers/viewers of the page design can accurately interpret a user's message or intent, and the designed page is easy to read and, if possible, makes a strong impression on the readers/viewers. To generate such a page design, a user needs to have a basic knowledge and know-how about a design, such as a layout or coloration.
Recently, the following method has become standard in an operation of generating a page design. That is, a desired design is selected from sample design plates and an editing operation is performed on the design. In addition to the method, there is known a method of designating a design image that determines an impression on page design readers/viewers to generate variations of layout or coloration of the page design and allowing a user to select an appropriate one that matches an intended image from the variations.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 07-093507 discusses a method of pairing a sample having a completed design, such as a photo, a painting, or a poster, and a color and coloration object characteristically used in the sample to generate a database, and determining coloration of the whole page design based on the sample in the database. According to the method, a page design can be obtained with coloration that is close to the coloration of the sample and is refined throughout. Also, coloration can be determined on another sample that is read from outside the database, based on an extracted color and coloration object of the sample.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 07-306935 discusses a method that allows a user to select a coloration image that determines an impression about a page design to thereby determine the most important color of the image, produces the other colors that match the most important color, combines the colors, and color the page design. For that purpose, a database is provided to store coloration images selected by a user. According to this method, an impression about a generated page design can be easily made to match a user's request.
In recent years, application software that dynamically generates a page design based on page components, purposes, and conditions designated by a user, has been released. This application provides a method for dynamically generating several hundreds of page designs in response to an input of an image, clip art, text, or page orientation on the page design to allow a user to select an appropriate one. The generated page design is displayed in a thumbnail view on a two-dimensional coordinate system where the horizontal axis represents whether a background design is included and the vertical axis represents a size of a main subject. The above-described display method helps a user in imagining which design is used in which position among a group of generated designs upon selecting a desired design. In addition, the user can select a coloration image that determines an impression about the selected page design. To describe a background to the development of the coloration technique, a color pallet and plural combinations of colors of the color pallet (color variation) are defined for each coloration image. The user can select a coloration image and a color variation that belongs to the selected coloration image. These techniques comprehensively support user's operations for generating a page design.
Hitherto, many page design applications have provided design templates. A user can select a template that matches an intended image, from the design template group, and replace or add images or characters as appropriate. However, the design templates have completed coloration. Thus, if a user having little design knowledge changes the coloration, the coloration tends to be corrupted especially in the case of adding or replacing a photo.
Any of the above-described methods is effective as a method of determining coloration of the entire page for giving a desired impression to readers/viewers of the page design. However, in the above-described condition in which a user lays out an image on the page design by himself/herself, the coloration of the whole page design including the image is not based on the image. Therefore, the image does not match the page design well in many cases.
The method discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 07-093507 can extract a color of apart of an image and use the extracted color for coloration of a page design. However, the color can be applied to a limited portion, such as a foreground or background. Thus, it is necessary to extract more colors for a page design including many elements, so that this method is inefficient. Further, which color is extracted and where the color is arranged are determined by a user. Therefore, if a user having little design knowledge generates a page design, the coloration of the completed page design is less likely to be desirable in terms of design.
The method discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 07-306935 automatically generates and displays plural coloration candidates according to a user's input to give an intended impression to readers and thus can change the original design to a desired deign with ease and efficiency. However, in the case of laying out user's own image data, such as a photo taken by a user, on a page design, colors of the image cannot be corrected or the total coloration cannot be determined based on the image. Therefore, desirable coloration, in which the image fits in the page design, is not necessarily attained throughout the whole page design.
In the page design application, the total coloration cannot be determined when an automatically generated page design is being edited. Therefore, coloration is more likely to be imbalanced unless colors are manually set as appropriate upon adding an image or text.
Therefore, in order for a general user having little design knowledge to generate a more desirable page design in terms of design, the total coloration of a page design including a user's image should be determined. In addition, the general user is required to have a technique for arranging colors in a simple and efficient manner at any desired time.